• Fondots@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    For families who participate in hunting and shooting sports, I can see giving the child their own gun, make it their responsibility to clean and maintain it, choose what optics or other accessories they put on it, etc.

    I don’t support letting them have unrestricted access to it as a minor though. It should be locked up whenever it’s not in use under adult supervision.

    I have a casual interest in guns, don’t currently own any but may someday when my budget allows (it’s pretty low on my priority list.) I do have a lot of friends who own guns though, many of them have had their “own” gun since childhood. All of their parents though were very strict about gun safety, none of them had free access to any guns or ammo until they were adults, and sometimes not even really until they moved out and took their guns with them because even as adults living at home with their parents some of them didn’t have the key/combo to the gun safe, so in a sense they still kind of had to ask for their parents’ permission if they wanted to take their guns out to go hunting or shooting into their 20s.